PEMEX: Mexico’s oil reserves may run out in seven years

Never a good sign when the #3 oil supplier to the US states that at current rates, Mexico’s oil reserve may run dry in seven years. If necessary investments are made, it may take them ten years to run out. Keep in mind that rising oil consumption in Mexico means that if this story is true, they’ll stop exporting oil to the USA long before that seven years is up.

I don’t think that the world is going to come crashing to a halt anytime in the near future, but unless we start making plans to radically change how we live and do business, the world is going to go through a long period of turbulence as the developed nations of the world 1) fight over the remaining oil reserves and 2) finally start adapting to the new energy paradigm. It’s not Mad Max, it’s the Long Emergency. If we can somehow keep things going more or less as usual until 2020, that just means that the ‘transition phase’ will start that much later, and with that much less (and that much more expensive) oil to help us through.